Fic: Five Things (Five Noises Faith loves)

I actually wrote fic at work. On a computer. Hmm. It's rather naughty doing that.

I'm totally spending this weekend writing like three different fics. Ack. And I am a total loser for not getting Kidney Punch out by Wednesday, like I wanted to. But I will have the next part of Regrets, my Faith fic, out by tomorrow and will be working on my cracktastic Doctor Who/Colbert Report crossover.

In the meantime, I did a Five Things list for Faith.

Five Noises Faith Loves

5. The creak-snap perfection as she cracks her neck. Muscles corded, bones settled, and laughter rising. Don’t need sparkly quips when you have a good crisp twist of neck. Her hair flies around her face, obscuring her smile in dark shadows.

4. Breathing. She breathes against a window pane and it’s silent on B’s side, but on Faith’s side, she hears so well and knows Buffy’s breathing out a yes. Hears Wes’s labored breathing as she slides broken glass into his skin and then it changes, becomes more ragged when he carries her back to the Hyperion as the Orpheus drug pulses in her veins. Buffy’s breathy sigh, the only tell she’s got when it comes to showing her amusement at one of Faith’s raunchy stories. Angel’s pointless breaths over the telephone as they sit there separated by bulletproof glass and she tells him it’s hard being there, it always is, but she feels like it’s not a waste. He breathes and it’s better than him telling her she’s doing good and she taps the glass with a fingernail, not wanting this moment to go anywhere, but it does. A breath and it’s gone.

3. Music so loud her ears are ringing and if she hadn’t gotten the Slayer seal of approval, would have made her deaf years ago. Still, her eardrums throb with the beat and the thumping noise rockets up her body no matter what - as she stands, dances, walks, runs, and fucking hops. She’s got a thousand songs that are all hers and remind her of a thousand different things only she doesn’t memorize the titles and only thinks, “yeah, that chorus, I staked that vamp just like that,” or, “damn, right there, that’s where I grabbed his ass and he was mine for the rest of the night.”

2. Faith. Yeah, she likes the sound of her goddamn name. Her mother, train wreck that she was, did at least one thing good and didn’t name her fucking Courtney or Melissa or Danielle, or some name that nobody’s gonna say by accident. People say faith all the time and lose it just as easy. She’s Faith, without faith, as her mother used to say, when she was hitting the bottle the hardest. Her dear old mother clutching the rosary in one hand and a bottle of gin in the other, saying, “Faith,” with all the disgust a drunk can muster and that’s the noise Faith loves the most, because she’s supposed to be ashamed to be Faith. Then her first Watcher sought her out and said Faith and she realized there are better things in that name than disgust and disappointment. It ain’t easy, and fuck she’s done enough shit to make her name nothing but a warning or a curse, but sometimes, the way it’s said, it’s almost like a fucking blessing.

1. You did good. Those aren’t the exact words she’s aching to hear. It’s a tone, a fucking tone she’s waiting for, like a bell to tell you what the damn time is, even when you finally figured it out. It’ll come out of nowhere, but it’s a welcome reminder. She’s heard it a few times, in short and sweet goodbyes, in long overdue conversations, in a man’s laughter as they roll around the bed, strung out in the post-coital rush of good sex, or some girl’s first gasp of happy surprise as the kiss deepens. It’s redemption, the very timbre of it and maybe someday it’ll be so loud that she won’t have to listen so hard and just be content, that yeah, she’s done good.

If anyone would like me to do a five things list with a certain character, please feel free to ask. I'm most used to BtVS/AtS, Farscape, SPN, Doctor Who, PotC, Veronica Mars, and HP.